Northwood: Cooper Hill Pizzeria

The skinny: We had heard about Cooper Hill Pizzeria in Northwood from a few folks over the years, and it had been on Andrew’s radar through work in the area. With a family now in tow, we don’t make pizza-centric road trips like we used to (not to say that Cooper Hill — on Route 4 — is all that out of the way), so when we had a fairly free day, we jumped at the chance to check out a new-to-us pizza place.

With young kids in tow, we sat on the restaurant side of the building. (The bar area is separated at the entrance.)

Fifteen specialty pizzas line the menu. A few of the choices include the Bolognese ($9.49/$15.49), with house-made meat sauce topped with the restaurant’s cheese blend; the Cordon Bleu ($10.99/$17.49), with homemade chicken fingers, ham and cordon bleu sauce; and the Pesto Chicken ($10.99/$17.49), featuring grilled chicken, roasted red peppers, cheese and pesto sauce.

Calzones are also on the menu. Many of the specialty options are similar to those for the pizzas. A gluten-free crust is available as well.

Review: We chose a large meatball pizza on regular crust ($13.48) — Deidre was already sad that she had forgotten to order the pie on the wheat crust option!

The pizza is a pretty typical Greek-style pie — which has never been one of Deidre’s favorites — but we have definitely found some she’s liked in our travels. Cooper Hill is one of them.

The crust had the slightest crunch on the outside and was chewy enough to be a part of the pizza that was looked forward to. Deidre has found that many Greek pizzas she’s tried have a drier crust, but Cooper Hill’s wasn’t at all. (The crust was also a hit with our baby.)

The amount of meatball on our pizza was ideal. Some of the pieces had a little char on them, which Deidre first took to thinking that they may have been dried out or overdone. Not so: They were perfectly done, tender and not heavy at all. It was clear that the meatballs were fresh-made, and Andrew guessed the recipe included some ground pork.

One of Deidre’s biggest issues with Greek-style pizzas is the cheese-to-sauce ratio: Too often, it’s too much cheese, not enough sauce. The amount of cheese here, though, was spot on. Andrew’s big beef with Greek places is they often rely on a nasty “pizza cheese” blend, that ends up flavorless when the oil cooks out of it. This cheese blend was definitely of a higher quality, as he could distinctly taste parmesan and mozzarella.

The sauce, however, was slightly lacking. Deidre felt her slices truly would have benefitted from a little bit more. Andrew wished there was just a bit more so he could actually tell what the sauce tasted like. As it was, it just didn’t stick out all that much.

Even the best Greek-style pizzas have a hard time holding up after a night in the fridge: the crust gets tough, and the oil on top kind of congeals. That wasn’t really the case here. When it started out, it wasn’t really a greasy pizza nor was the crust all that dry. Digging into a couple slices the next morning was great, and Andrew even got a sweet-tangy hint of the pizza sauce.

If we’re in the area again, we’ll be making another stop at Cooper Hill.